


Your Sugar Sits Untouched

by kaijuvenom



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: As in it is explained how a ghost died because this is a ghost au, But I wanted to sort of hint at romance a lil, Can be seen as platonic, M/M, Mentions of Death, Multi, Nonbinary Deceit Sanders, Other, ghost au, this fic will leave you with many unanswered questions just like any good ghost movie will
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:42:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24449056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaijuvenom/pseuds/kaijuvenom
Summary: The novelty of having a ghost living in his room had worn off for Virgil a long time ago, although that didn't mean he was annoyed with said ghost. In fact, he would go as far as to say his free-boarding ghost roommate was his friend. The ghost themself was a bit strange and unusual, but Virgil himself was strange and unusual, so it felt right to him.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Deceit Sanders
Comments: 4
Kudos: 79





	Your Sugar Sits Untouched

_Did you know sometimes it frightens me when you say my name and I can’t see you? Will you ever learn to materialize before you speak?_

“You know I can tell when you’re watching me, don’t you?” Virgil said, a small smile appearing on his face as he turned to address a seemingly empty corner of his room.

The air flickered and a form appeared solidly for a second, before flickering out of sight, appearing in the shape of a human, wearing a dark cape and a hat, its face staticky almost as if it were a video buffering. It vanished again, and Virgil squinted, scanning the room for a telltale whisper or ruffle of a curtain or a bedsheet. 

“Did you miss me?”

Virgil spun around to see the form back again, sitting on top of his desk with their legs crossed, smirking at him. “I’m starting to think you never actually left,” Virgil responded, walking over standing in front of the ghost, examining their blurry face as he often did, as if he believed if he could focus on it just the right way, he’d be able to make out its features. 

“I suppose you won’t know, will you?” The ghost waved their hand, blowing a soft gust of air across Virgil’s face, causing his bangs to brush away from his eyes.

“I would if you told me,” Virgil said, raising his hand to the ghost’s, watching as it sunk through like it wasn’t really there, his fingers holding on to nothing. He continued his movements, almost like he was trying to catch the ghost off guard and would suddenly manage to make contact with their hand.

_Impetuous boy, if that’s what you really are. Do you do this every night with someone else? You tell me that you never leave, and I’m almost afraid to believe it._

The ghost didn’t appear regularly, Virgil had tried to establish some sort of pattern they had, but after weeks to months of completely inconsistent appearances, he chose to give up and embrace the mystery. 

_“Do you want to know my name?”_

Virgil jumped; although he really should be used to their sudden appearances by now. “Do you want to know my name?” Virgil asked, glancing around the room in an attempt to locate the source of the voice.

“ _I_ _already know your name._ ”

“Oh?” Virgil raised an eyebrow, going back to writing in his notebook when he decided the ghost wouldn’t be physically showing themself to him today. 

_"Virgil._ ”

The voice was right in his ear, and Virgil nearly had a heart attack, whipping his head around and seeing nothing, then almost had another heart attack when he turned back around to see the ghost sitting cross-legged on the end of his bed right in front of him. Virgil threw his notebook at them. Obviously, it passed right through their body, but they still flinched, attempting to duck out of the way, which Virgil found interesting. 

“That was rude,” they said, frowning disapprovingly, and the features of their face were clearer today. Virgil had always thought it was some sort of trick of the light, but the ghost seemed to have scales on their face. Just on one side, they caught the light and sparkled like they were made of solid objects. Virgil moved his hand to touch their face, but, of course, his fingers fell right through them. Their eyes followed his movements, going cross-eyed to stare at his hand, which was hovering somewhere around where their nose should be. 

“What are you doing?” They asked, leaning to the side to get Virgil’s hand out of their face (quite literally, since his hand had been practically inside their head, or what would have been, if they had one). 

_Why is it me you’ve chosen to follow? Did you like the way I look when I’m sleeping? Was my hair more fun to tangle? Are my dreams more entertaining?_

Virgil shrugged in response, letting his hand fall back to his lap. “What is your name? Or were you planning on making me guess?” 

The ghost smirked as if that had been their exact intention, and Virgil rolled his eyes. “I’ll give a hint. It starts with _D_.” 

“Fine. Then that’s what I’ll call you,” Virgil said, grinning. He was never any good at guessing games anyway. “Dee.” 

Frowning, the ghost flicked their finger and Virgil’s notebook flew up from where he’d thrown it, bumping Virgil in the head before falling back down onto the bed next to him. 

“You’re no fun,” they said, their image flickering for a second before solidifying again. 

“That’s what they tell me.” Virgil looked away from the ghost and back to his notebook, going back to what he’d been doing before when he hadn’t been rudely interrupted. 

_Do you laugh when I’m complaining that I’m all alone?_

Dee came and went as they pleased, usually appearing as nothing more than a faint reflection in a mirror or a shadow at the corner of Virgil’s room, he assumed because it took too much energy for them to appear as anything more. He didn’t mention this to any of the other sides, maybe because he didn’t think they’d believe him, but more likely because he was a tad attached to Dee, and more than a little selfish. He didn’t want Dee finding someone else more interesting and fun to haunt (was haunt even the right word?) than Virgil was.

Speaking of whether or not he was being haunted… “Are you a ghost? Or some kind of… spirit?” Virgil asked, wondering if he was speaking to an empty room. 

His curtains blew lightly, despite his window being closed, and the quiet echo of a laugh signaled Dee was most certainly there. 

“I was wondering if you would ever ask.” Dee melded into the air next to him. “I’m a ghost,” they confirmed after Virgil looked at them expectantly. 

“So does that mean…?” Virgil trailed off, wondering how rude it was to ask a ghost how they died. He wasn’t exactly familiar with ghost etiquette. 

“That I died? Yes,” Dee finished, not seeming bothered by the question. 

Virgil stared down at the floor, at the way Dee was constantly hovering about an inch off the ground. 

“Uh… how…?” Yet again, he stopped his question halfway through.

_Where were you when I searched for a friend to talk to? In a year, where will you be?_

“Funny thing about that,” Dee said. “I know how, as in what must’ve happened, but I can’t for the life of me remember it happening.” They laughed, and Virgil couldn’t tell if it was genuine or not. 

“Well, then… how do you know it happened? The way you think it did?” 

“Oh, because of this.” Dee moved the collar of their cape, pushing it down to reveal dark-colored marks on their neck. They weren’t completely clear; Dee’s features had always been hard to focus on, but Virgil could see well enough that the dark bruise was in the shape of a handprint, like someone had squeezed Dee’s throat, choking them. There was a clear thumbprint directly over their Adam’s apple. A full palm along the front of their neck, and four distinct fingerprints. Choking the life out of them with one hand.

“Oh my God,” Virgil muttered, forcing himself to look away, squeezing his eyes shut. “That’s horrible.”

“Not particularly,” Dee said, and their casual tone made Virgil look back up again, to see them rubbing at their neck thoughtfully. “I don’t remember it. I don’t even remember who could’ve done it to me.”

“But still, it must be-”

“For all I know, it could’ve been an accident. Getting a little too kinky, y’know?” 

Virgil squinted at them, then shook his head, frowning. “You’re lying, aren’t you? You don’t remember it, but it does bother you, doesn’t it?” 

_Is it enough for you to steal into my mind? Well, please close the curtains when you leave at night or I’ll have to find someone to stay and warm me._

“Perceptive, aren’t you?” Dee asked, and Virgil couldn’t tell if it was sarcasm or a compliment. Knowing Dee, it was probably both at once. 

Virgil sat down on the edge of his bed, gesturing for Dee to join him, which they did, floating over, their cape and hair fluttering in a nonexistent breeze as they sat down, or at least, gave Virgil the illusion of sitting down, seeing as Dee couldn’t seem to physically touch solid objects. 

“Tell me about it. About what you remember.” 

Dee hesitated, their form fading for a moment, and Virgil thought maybe he’d offended them, that they were going to leave and never come back or something, but then they solidified again, with a nostalgic smile on their face. 

“I remember you,” they said thoughtfully, and Virgil blinked. 

“What?”

Dee didn’t register his voice, they looked up at the ceiling, expression unreadable. “It’s distant. Like a memory of a dream you had months ago, and you can only remember a few important bits, the ones that stick with you, but the rest of it is gone forever.”

“That’s not possible,” Virgil said, shaking his head. “I don’t know you. I never did.”

“No,” Dee agreed. “But nevertheless, there you are, right there in the middle of my memory. We were close, closer to each other than anyone else, and we were alone. It was always dark, wasn’t it?” Their voice grew distant and Virgil shivered.

_Will you always attend my midnight tea parties, as long as I set your place?_

“I don’t-” Virgil began, but Dee continued talking.

“Dark and cold, and those hallways, hallways that went on forever, doors going on and on, and we knew not to go through them.”

Virgil knew what they were talking about; the other side of the house, where the dark sides lived, where Virgil had once lived. “But I was alone there, Dee. You weren’t there. I would’ve remembered-”

“I know,” Dee said, shaking their head. “ _Y_ _ou_ were. But I think… I think somewhere, in some time, you weren’t.”

“Well, it wasn’t this time,” Virgil said quietly, looking away. “Because if I hadn’t been, I probably would never have left. To live over here, with the others.” 

When Dee didn’t respond to that, Virgil glanced over, feeling the need to nudge Dee to get their attention again, but he didn’t want to fall directly through them, so instead he just waited for Dee to answer.

“I remember… I remember when you left,” Dee said quietly, as if they were struggling to remember. But then they waved their hand, floating up into the air, hovering above the bed in a sitting position. “But it wasn’t _you_ , you. But that’s where I stop remembering. Somewhere around… around after you left. I don’t remember.” Their hand went up to their throat as they floated there, bobbing up and down, seemingly deep in thought. 

_If one day, your sugar sits untouched, will you have gone forever? Would you miss me in a thousand years, when you dry another’s tears?_

“You don’t have to remember,” Virgil said, and without thinking, reached up to touch Dee’s arm, and for a second, one fleeting second, he could’ve sworn his fingers brushed against the soft cloth of their shirtsleeve before sinking through. Dee seemed to notice it as well, a shudder ran through their body, before they disappeared, a look of mild surprise still on their face. 

“Dee?” Virgil stood up, glancing around. “Dee?” He didn’t receive a response. The curtains didn’t rustle in a telltale breeze, there was no soft, whispering echo signaling a prank being pulled on him like usual. Virgil tried not to think too much about it, Dee was unpredictable at the best of times, they’d be back before he even knew it, he was sure of it. 

Except that they weren’t. They didn’t come back for weeks, months, even. It worried Virgil, but there wasn’t much of anything he could do about it. He’d consulted the internet on how to summon ghosts and had hopelessly failed every time, he’d even gone through the trouble of asking Roman how one might hypothetically summon a ghost or some other manner of spirit. Of course, Roman had attempted to pull something out of his ass, and obviously it hadn’t worked. Not that he hadn’t made an attempt. Virgil would give him a gold star for trying. 

_But when you say you’ll never leave me, I wonder if you’ll have the decency to pass through the wall to the next room while I dress for dinner._

Dee finally reappeared. After six months of being gone without a trace, they popped back up, exactly where they’d been when they’d vanished. It made Virgil almost jump out of his skin, and he may or may not have screamed at the top of his lungs. 

“Sorry about that, I don’t-” Dee flinched at Virgil’s scream, looking around in an attempt to locate him. “Why-? Weren’t you-?” They pointed at the bed, then at Virgil, tilting their head in confusion.

“Dee?” Virgil wanted to run over to them and bury them in a giant hug, which he couldn’t do, but the thought was what counted, he supposed. “Dee, oh my God! You’ve been gone- I thought you weren’t coming back- I thought you were gone forever, oh m-”

Dee held up their hand, floating down to the ground to be level with Virgil. “What are you talking about? And why is your hair different?” 

Virgil self-consciously ran a hand through his hair, which was now longer and partially dyed a deep purple color. “Dee, you’ve- you’ve been gone for six months.”

“What?” They blinked, squinting at Virgil, then looking over at his wall calendar, which didn’t help, considering the last time Virgil had flipped his calendar had been ten months ago. “I didn’t mean to-”

“Where were you?” Virgil interrupted, not sure if he should be concerned or mad, so he went with concern, seeing as Dee looked almost as confused as he was. 

“I wasn’t? Anywhere? I was only gone for a second,” Dee said, shaking their head slowly. 

“Six months is not a second,” Virgil said, obviously. 

“No,” Dee agreed, also obviously. “But I could’ve sworn…” they trailed off, shrugging. “I’m a ghost, I suppose time is irrelevant to me. The important thing is that I’m back.” They seemed oblivious to Virgil’s concern, the way he seemed one more sentence away from fully breaking down, as they looked around the room. “Well, what’s changed while I’ve been gone? Besides your hair. Which I like, by the way. Very emo of you, a nice 2006 throwback.”

_You can’t just fly into people’s bedrooms and expect them to calmly wave goodbye. You’ve changed the course of history and didn’t even try._

“Virgil?” Dee reached forward, their hand going through his shoulder as they attempted to comfort him, “Virgil, what’s wrong?” 

“What’s _wrong_? What’s wrong is I thought I lost you forever, and I didn’t know how to get you back, I- I care about you, Dee, and I thought you were _gone_.” Virgil covered his face with his hands, feeling stupid to be crying over this, Dee was a _ghost_ , a ghost who had managed to cling onto Virgil and disrupt his life and somehow Virgil had managed to get attached to them.

“I’m sorry, Virgil, I didn’t mean to-”

“No, I’m not-” Virgil turned, curling up into a ball on his bed. “I’m not blaming you, I’m just- I was so scared.” 

Dee floated behind him, legs going through the bed like it was the illusion and Dee was the solid object. 

“I didn’t want to be alone again.”

“I know the feeling,” Dee said softly, wrapping their arms around Virgil’s curled up body, and a shudder went through them both, and Virgil could _feel_ their arms, not in the way he could feel a living person’s. But he could feel their arms in a different way, like they were covering him in a blanket of warmth, something he couldn’t feel on a physical level, but he knew it was there, the same way he knew when Dee appeared in his room. The way he could always tell. 

_Where are you now? Standing behind me? Taking my hand? Come and remind me who you are. Have you traveled far? Are the angels after you?_

Virgil had never been one to enjoy the sensations of touch, and perhaps that was why he found Dee so comforting. Their hugs were filled with that reassuring warmth he wanted, _needed_ , but none of the physical intimacy that scared him. Of course, at some points, he might’ve preferred to take their hand and intertwine their fingers, and other times, when Dee became a solid form for seconds and occasionally even minutes at a time, it was disconcerting and strange, but that was Dee. Reassuring, warm, disconcerting, strange, all those things at once, and Virgil wouldn’t ask for them to be anything else. 

They spent much more time together after that day, when Virgil had that emotional outburst over Dee’s vanishing, and most nights, Dee would stay with Virgil as he slept, and Virgil didn’t know if ghosts slept, but they were always there when he woke up in the morning, floating a centimeter above the blankets and staring up at the ceiling with a contented smile on their face, or looking at Virgil with the softest expression Virgil had ever seen anyone have on their face while looking at him. 

Dee never really remembered much else of their past, didn’t really remember where they’d come from exactly or why they were here now, but it didn’t matter, because they were there now, and being there, with Virgil, seemed to be reason enough not to question it, and to stay. To stay for as long as they could, as long as Virgil lived in this room, and perhaps even afterward, too. 

_  
__Are you made of stardust too?_

**Author's Note:**

> uuuuuuuh twitter: @kaijuvenom  
> tumblr: https://kaijuvenom.tumblr.com/
> 
> leave uuuuhhh comments if you want thx


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